The Story Of The New Wanderers
by Callx0fxPuberty
Summary: Redux of 'The Story of the New Lone Wanderers'. Looks like wanderlust is hereditary. The Lone Wanderer's son was going to enter the Wasteland one day. Hearing about this Father of his... that was the tipping point. After entering the Wastes, he is met with what can only be describes as Hell's older brother. Oh, and the feeling that history is repeating itself.
1. In The Beginning

**Right to set the scene: This story takes place around eighteen years after the events of Fallout 3. The protagonist, Callum Almodovar, is the son of the Lone Wanderer, Gavin Scott, and Vault 101's Overseer, Amata Almodovar.**

**I do not own Fallout or any of the Fallout related articles mentioned throughout this story, Bethesda does and so on and so forth… **

**Also, this is a redux of a redux. Just to let you know because my crappy computer decided to break. Got another one now so I'm in it till the end!**

**We start in the vault just after the 2295 edition of the G.O.A.T…**

**CHAPTER 1: IN THE BEGINNING**

"Father… Dad… is it actually you? Really you? I can't believe it. How did I manage to find you?" Funny. No matter how surreal or bizarre a dream, you still believe it without doubt.

"What are you mumbling about, boy?" A familiar voice echoed. The words did not come from the mouth of the person I believed to be my father. "Callum! Wake up you lazy boy!" The voice boomed, snapping me out of my dream and back to reality.

I jumped up so violently that it was like I had been poked in the ass with a cattle prod. While doing so I had smashed my head off of something, and damn I hit it hard. I ripped my eyes open and instinctively moved my hand to cover the now throbbing pain in my forehead. It was then that I noticed what the 'something' that I hit was. It was Mr. Brotch, the vault teacher. In head-butting him I had successfully burst open some part of his face which, from what I could see, was likely his nose.

_Right... of course I was unbelievably happy that I had just basically assaulted the teacher and destroyed his face... but that was not how I felt at that moment in time._

"AUGGHH!" screamed Mr. Brotch, spit flying from his mouth, "What in the Overseer's name are you trying to do? You're lucky that wasn't deliberate, boy!" He screamed, gesturing at his seeping nose. The blood had already mixed in with the dark hair of his moustache, which had evidently stemmed the flow past his upper lip. "I thought that when the Overseer upped the age of sitting the GOAT to 17 it would have stopped ridiculous matters like this caused by imaturity?" He rambled on, typical of him these days as he was starting to get on a bit.

"How is this anything to do with imaturity?" I grumbled to myself, knowing that Mr. B in his old age would never in a million years hear me. There was no point flat out arguing with him, as a seventeen year old, your opinion just didn't quite matter a fuck yet, "I'm sorry, it was an accident. You startled me!" I admited, although louder so he could hear me.

He sighed, "Yes, I know but nonetheless, I shall have to tell your mother about this." Once again repeating the gesture to his face. "Even if this hadn't happened I still would've had to tell her about you sleeping in class!" Mr. Brotch stood up and hurried over to his desk to grab a paper towel for his nose.

"NO!" I pleaded, shooting up from the chair and making it fly backwards. "She's the overseer, she'll have to put on a stern show, she'll kill me! I wouldn't have been sleeping if I hadn't finished the G.O.A.T. So damned early!" I shouted, beginning to bite my nails like I always did when I was nervous.

"I'm well aware of your situation, Almodovar, but this is unacceptable. That aside, I'm sure you want to know what your result is for your exam, am I right?" Mr. Brotch picked up my test paper from my desk and took a look at it, cross-referencing my answers with whatever bullshit answer grid there was for questions that apparently had 'no right or wrong answer'.

"Yeah, go for it." _Not like it matters, I'm not going to be in this vault for the rest of my life_

"Well let's see shall we?" He took a couple more minutes looking at the test paper and furrowed his brow. "Well well young man lookey here, you always were a difficult one weren't you?"

"How? What's wrong?" I asked, confused.

"You have a conflicting result. As in two profession outcomes."

"How can I have two different outcomes? What are they?"

"Says here that you should be the next chief of security. But it also says the next vault physician, how peculiar..." He trailed off.

"Why, what's so 'peculiar' about that?" I asked, intrigued.

"Erm... eh..." He stuttered. "You should ask your mother. She might choose to tell you, and you better ask her before tomorrow because that is when I'm sending her a letter about our little incident here. Now you can have the rest of the day off, to celebrate, or to pray, as THIS situation warrants..." he trailed off again.

"Creepy old man." I grumbled as I trudged out of the classroom and out into the hallway. The mechanical 'whoosh' signified the classroom door closed behind me.

I started to jog away, just past Officer Gomez's... no wait... Dr. Gomez's clinic (he became the new vault doctor recently) when something smashed into my side which knocked me to the ground. I was then covered my three shadowed figures which I recognised instantly: Freddie Deloria, Matthew Mack and David Hannon – the remnants of the infamous Tunnel Snakes.

"Freddie, I don't have time for you guys right now. I need to do something important... eh... for the Overseer." I pleaded, attempting to stand up.

"Oh, so the little Overseer's son is now not just too smart for us... but he actually thinks he's better than us. So he can say that he doesn't have time for us. Got a little job to do for Mommy have you?" Freddie said in his usual repetitive and mocking tone. "Well how 'bout you give your precious Mommy a message from the tunnel snakes?"

_BANG!_ Freddy cracked me in the side of the face with all his strength and weight behind the hit. The sucker punch dazed me and I knew there was no way for me to retaliate. I tried to regain my composure but was hit again from the side before I even had a chance. I slid down against the wall and landed on the floor, completely helpless. All three of them started pounding me non-stop for about a minute but I was out for the count after 10 seconds. Those ten seconds were sheer and utter hell.

* * *

"Callum... kid... are you okay?" I could hear Doctor Gomez's sympathetic voice distantly. I opened my eyes but could still only see white. I went for a double take which didn't help much at all. I blinked several times more until my vision cleared enough so I could see the shadowy outline of the good Doctor.

"Doc... Doctor Gomez. Why can't I see properly? Why can't I see?" I began to panic.

"It's okay. You're experiencing the rebuff-effects of the Super Stimulant Delivery Package that I injected you with to help with your concussion. It'll be gone within five minutes. Don't worry about it."

"A Super Stim? I thought they only used them for really serious illnesses and stuff?"

"Well yes, you are the heir to the overseer seat, so any ailment you have qualifies for 'really serious illnesses and stuff'. But to be honest you weren't in very good condition at all and I probably would used one no matter who it was, Callum."

When I got my full vision back, I realised I had a large bandage wrapped around my chest which I was told was there because I apparently had a broken rib! I then noticed that I was dressed in only my orange boxer shorts. _Our clothes don't really have brand recognition because they're all created by Vault-Tec, so the only thing we have to stand out from the crowd to the lady Vault Dwellers are interesting and bright colours._

I stood up to go and get my 'jumpsuit' which my best friend, Brogan Kendall, and I had customised into two sections: with dark blue jeans for the lower half; and the normal Vault 101 upper half. After getting dressed, I turned to leave but the Doctor stopped me and said that my mother was coming and that I had to wait for her. O_h great she's going to go fucking ape-shit when she sees me like this... what an embarrassment!_

As if on cue my Mother charged in and squealed (loudly I'll add). "Oh my God! Callum! Who did this to you, my sweetie?" She then hugged me tightly which hurt like fuck on my chest. Thankfully Doc intervened.

"Emm, Miss Overseer...?" Gomez tapped Mom on the shoulder, trying to get her attention.

"Amata..." she corrected him.

"... Yes Amata, he's got a broken rib, so I strongly advise against hugging him, please."

"Oh my God..." She looked at me and saw the pained expression on my face and screeched. "I'm so sorry Callum, does it hurt terribly?"

"It does now," I added cheekily.

"Who did this to him?" she asked accusingly at Gomez.

"It was Freddy DeLoria and his gang..."

"Oh, I'm going to see to it that that boy and his gang get sent straight into jail."

"Christ... Mom, they're 17. Same as me. And that 'contemplation room' we have can hardly be referred to as a jail."

"Well... I'll do something..." She huffed, grabbing crutches and a wheelchair from the corner of the clinic for some unknown reason.

"Yes I'm sure you will, now can we go?" I asked, getting impatient.

"Anyway, Amata, Callum must go easy on his rib, so he shouldn't do much other than lounging around for the next couple of days," Doc explained. Result! _Maybe this won't be so bad after all._

"Which means none of your silly exercises Callum!" Mom scorned. "I mean honestly, sweetie, it's the 23rd century, where almost everything is done by computer, so what would you actually gain from exercising? Okay... we're off, thank you for your help, Doctor Gomez. Here, Callum." she said, rolling the wheelchair to me which I looked at incredulously.

"Mom, I can walk fine fuck sake," I said dismissively, trying to act cool, but Mom was having none of it.

"What did you say!" she screamed with an amazing upward inflection and the end.

"I said, I can walk fine, what the heccckkk?" I lied, putting emphasis at the end in a feeble attempt to cover up my swearing.

"You had better!" she replied, with her eyes burning holes in my head.

As we walked away my Mother said to me in a very 'matter of fact' way. "That Freddie is going to be a handful when he's older if his father doesn't take him in." _Yeah, as if I'm meant to care about something like that?_

* * *

As we got to the atrium, I saw Brogy Bear (one of my many nicknames for Brogan) in the little computer room typing on a terminal. I couldn't see what she was typing but I could make out the big, bold title at the top which read: "My Diary, June 21st 2295". This intrigued me so I said to Mom as quietly as possible. "Mom can I go see Gogo?" _There's another one._

"Okay, but go easy on your rib baby." Christ_, could she be any more embarrassing?_ As I stealthily crept over to the entrance of the computer room she called, "I love you!" _Evidently, she can._ Brogan looked back into the atrium to see if anyone was looking at her computer screen. When she saw no one, except Mom walking into the corridor that held the upper-atrium stairs, she resumed typing vigorously into the terminal. I edged slowly into the room and almost fell over and gasped out in ecstasy when I saw what she was typing, it read:

**Dear diary,**

** I have heard that my amazing callum has been beaten up by those stupid tunnel snake wanabees, which pisses the hell outa me 'coz I can't see why those fuckers don't love him as much as I do. That's why I'm writing this, to show myself that I think I might have a crush on him. Thing is, we kissed and did a few other things last saturday when we were drunk and although it may just have been because we were drunk and we thought it would be fun but I don't know. I am so confused because he is my best friend for fuck sake and I know that if we didn't work as a couple then our friendship would never be the same again. **

I was over the moon after reading this, so I crept out of the computer room and over to the upper atrium stairs to make it seem as if I wasn't spying on Brogan. I was about to call her when I was distracted by movement to my left. I looked to see what it was, only to me met with Mom doing a big, double-handed wave to me through the window in her office. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching and gave a small wave back. I then turned around, shouting for Beccs who shot up off of her seat and ran at me across the atrium. She grabbed me tightly but pulled away quickly when I winced in pain manifesting from my sore chest. We returned down the stairs to the lower atrium again as I told her the full story and she went to give me a 'feel sorry' kiss. I pulled away at the last second when I remembered my Mother was watching.

"Wait Bee, my Mom is looking at us." I pointed out.

"Oh shit, that was close wasn't it?" she replied, growing serious. "C'mon let's go up and tell your Mom that you're staying at mine tonight to celebrate us doing the G.O.A.T.

"We're far too comfortable with each other aren't we? Talking of which, what'cha get in it?" I asked

"Just a little bit." She laughed. "And nurse, you?" _Oh doctor and nurse, I love that idea._

"Doctor, hah, that combination will be so fun for us won't it?" I left out the part about the security chief. I had a secret dislike for authority figures. That included my Mother.

"Yeah, c'mon let's go." she said tugging my arm. I turned to go when I remembered the diary passage.

"Hold on... I... eh... left my Nuka-Cola in the computer room this morning. Those things amaze me. I mean, how they can still be fizzy after 200 odd years?"

"Haha... I know, weird huh?" We turned back, with barely ten centimetres between our feet, and basically skipped into the computer room. I pretended to act surprised when I saw what was on the terminal screen, hoping to unnerve and embarrass her; but when I saw her face, I realised it was dead serious. "What? I know, weird huh?" she repeated. "I think that'll be the main topic of our chatting at mine tonight, don't you think?" She turned off the terminal then we then shared a passionate kiss which was broken apart by a familiar annoying voice...

"Yo gay boy... get your ass out here." Teased Freddy.

"Well, since I'm the one that just kissed a girl and you're not, I think more will believe that you're the gay one." I snidely commented. _What the fuck, Callum? That is just self-sabotaging to the highest level!_

"You say anything like that again and I'll break more than just a rib! Now get the fuck over here NOW!" He jeered. _Man how does he know about that?_

"Right." I sighed, glanced at Brogan, and then cautiously walked over to the tunnel snakes. "What is it?" I asked, a bit scared.

"Give me your hand," Freddie commanded.

"What? Why?" I backed off, knowing that if I gave him it then he would probably just snap all of my fingers.

"I said. Give. Me. Your. Fucking. Hand." Freddy said calmly, cockily. _So fucking cocky! I hate him so damn much!_ Reluctantly I placed my hand out and closed my eyes, knowing what was going to happen, when I found out I was wrong. Freddie took my hand in his and shook it as if making a truce, then Matthew and David did the same. I was utterly shocked! As I looked back at Brogan who was clearly frightful (_not as much as me I'll bet_), Freddie exclaimed. "That bitch still looking?" Steve and David turned to look and sure enough, there was the Overseer, with a confused expression on her face.

"Yeah." they both said in unison.

"Good, this should be enough to get the snobby little fuck off of our backs."

"Don't talk about my Mom like that." I said weakly, trying to fein bravery.

"Oh yeah, or what?" Freddy goaded, coming closer to my face. I turned away in fury and defeat, wanting to completely obliterate him with just one amazing haymaker. _Who am I even kidding?_

"Or..." I took a step back, defeated. "Just please don't." I half-whispered.

"Yeah, whatever you say." He took my right hand again, and sideways high-fived it. He then brought his other arm round and slapped me in the back and in doing so, rammed his right shoulder into my sore rib. To my mother it would just have looked like we had made up; but to me... I knew this was just the same as any other day. I took a step back into the computer room again, away from my Mother's watching eye and uttered out a weird, high-pitched 'oof' sound and fell to the floor.

**That's the first chapter done of the redux of 'The Story Of The New Lone Wanderers'. I realised that I had to make some significant grammatical changes throughout the full chapter. At least there won't be much wait in between chapters being updated, due to most of my work being done already. For those of you that are returning from reading my old story, I'm very sorry for letting it die, but at least it's back and it'll be better. Please review and follow, thanks.**


	2. Let's Plan, Shall We

** CHAPTER 2: LET'S PLAN, SHALL WE?**

It took twenty minutes before I was even able to stand; albeit with a seriously sore chest and a great urge to cough. Brogan sat beside me with a bottle of water in her hand. As I sat down on a desk chair beside one of the terminals, I began to cough violently. My friend handed me the bottle, which I sipped at in an attempt to stop the agonising fit of coughing. Eventually, it helped me from blowing up from the inside-out. "Fuckin' Tunnel Snakes, I'd kick their asses one by one, I bet you; but they always pretend to be tough in their little gang. Immature assholes if you ask me!" I exclaimed, imitating my mother. "I don't know why they won't leave me alone, it's not my fault my Mom is the overseer... idiots!"

"Callum, you've got 2 black eyes. That must have been from earlier, but they're just showing up now." she added, obviously worried.

"Shit, I can't go see my Mom like this. I can't be bothered with her crap! Have you had to sit and listen to one of her dramatic lectures?" I said, now worried as well. I reminded myself that I had to pretend to be brave in the presence of my lady friend, so quickly added. "But fuck 'er, I don't care."

"I have, many a time. They're not the most stimulating things to attend. No, Callum, here, let me put this on you..." She reached into her jeans pocket and fished out a small cylindrical object (we had re-designed her jumpsuit as well).

"No! Fuck that, I'm not wearing make-up!" I turned away in disgust and stood up, wincing in pain and holding my chest by hugging myself with both arms.

"Your Mother isn't going to let you stay at mine tonight if you walk into your quarters looking like an old banana!" She teased.

"Oh... good point. Awk, well she'll just have to deal with it. I'm sorry, Gogo, I'm putting my foot down here. Not even one single chance are you attacking me with that powdery shit." I laughed, pretending to be annoyed in an attempt to be dramatic.

"Right okay then." She huffed, forcefully blowing a cloud of skin-coloured dust at me, "And another thing, you're not three any more, why do you still call me that?"

"That's the way I said your name when I was a wee guy, I'm keeping it that way!"

I urged her toward the doorway and across the atrium so we get to my quarters.

* * *

We walked into Mom's office several minutes later, and Mom turned round with a beaming smile on her face.

"It's really nice that you and those boys have made up. For that, I'm going to drop any charges on them." She cheerfully spoke, completely unaware of the assault that had occurred not half an hour previous. Brogitch looked at me, expectant of a response, but I stayed silent. "Oh Brogan, I heard you achieved nurse in your G.O.A.T., that's wonderful, so it is! My Callum managed to get Doctor, didn't you baby?" I looked away in disgust of her attempt to embarrass me which was working perfectly. "But security chief as well... that's peculiar." She stated.

"Yes Miss Overseer..."

"Amata, Brogan... Amata."

"Yes... Amata, Callum never told me about that last part. Did you, Callum... Callum?"

"What? Um... yeah." I replied, my thoughts elsewhere.

"What's wrong baby?" My mother asked.

"Everyone keeps saying that what I got in the G.O.A.T exam is peculiar. Why is that?"

"Well... hmm." she sighed. "Maybe you two better sit down."

"Emm... OK." we both replied in unison.

"Well, Callum, all I've told you is that your Dad lives in the Wasteland. Right?" She asked and I nodded. "Well your Dad, Gavin, used to live in the Vault, until he was 19 years old. He was forced into leaving because your Grandfather left. Oh, by the way, that was Gavin's Father that left, not mine. Anyway, apparently, their leaving had something to do with the framed quote in the clinic that I used to read to you when you were a kid... well that and purified water. Do you remember it?" My mother asked, clearly enjoying telling the story as it was not something she would be able to speak of on a regular basis.

"Revelation 21:6: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely." I replied. Brogan looked at me in awe, clearly taken aback by my biblical ties. I'd never taken an interest in religion before, in fact, quite the opposite.

"That's the one. Well basically, last I heard, your Father had started the water purifier and the "waters of life", so to speak, flowed. Free and clean, for any and all. But that didn't stop the hellish Wasteland from being dangerous. That is why when your Father came back here and put the Vault to rights; I closed the door to the Vault and sent him out: knowing the wandering nature your Father had, he would likely open it again and you would just walk out there with him and be killed. He doesn't even know you exist. Now Callum and Brogan, I want you both to promise me something..."

"What is it?" I asked, giving her a face that a child would do whilst being told a ghost story.

"That you must never try to go out there, that is a life that I would never want for anyone in this Vault."

"Sure." Brogan replied quickly, before I could argue or ask a stupid question that would only arise suspicion.

"Mom, can I stay at Gogan's tonight?" I asked.

"Sure, as long as you don't get into trouble, I know what you're like, the two of you. The dynamic bloody duo. One is just as bad as the other. And, of course, as long as that's okay with Christine?"

"Yep, she said it was fine. I asked her after class today." She assured Mom, turning to her left and giving me a wink with her left eye so Mom couldn't see it. I had to turn away so Mom couldn't see me smiling. _Had she fuck asked, at least not yet!_

* * *

We were sitting on Gogo's bed in her quarters, playing a game on my Pip-Boy. I died in the game and lost my last life. I bared my teeth in anger as an annoying 'game over' sign flashed in my face. I hit my right arm off of the bed in fury (because I was left handed, my Pip-Boy was unorthodoxly on my right arm).

"I have a really serious question for you, little one." I spoke slowly, as if deep in thought.

"Shoot." She replied, eager to know what was so important.

"What do you think it would smell like if you managed to get your Pip-Boy off? Like can you imagine the seven-year-old sweat that's lying in there? And with you it's eight years old! Foosty arm!"

"Oh my God... only you. Seriously... only you would think of that. To be fair you can remove some of the older models. What's foosty? You inventing words again?" She laughed and playfully punched me in the arm.

"No, it's a word I saw in a book about some Old World country. Can't remember which one though."

"Fair enough."

"Okay, now for a real serious question."

"Only if it's not about something else that's disgusting."

"Obviously not. That was a one-off."

"Right, go on then."

"What would you say about me having a plan to escape the vault?"

"Stop kidding around, Callum. Ask me what you really want to say."

"I'm not joking, that's it, Brogan."

"What? Are you fucking delusional! Why the fuck would you want to go out there?" Her face darkened. "You heard what your Mom said: it's really dangerous out there."

"Yeah, but I really want to find my Dad, just to tell him that I exist... because she said that too... that he doesn't even know I exist. I mean if I had a kid... not now obviously, but at some point later on in life... I'd want to know. I mean I've always wanted to know who my Dad was but I just assumed he was some deadbeat who'd probably be dead by now. Obviously a good looking one mind you 'coz I don't really look much like Mom. The way Mom was speaking though, about what this 'Gavin' guy had done. I dunno... he sounds really important. Maybe he can really handle himself. He might still be alive."

"Well, I suppose I understand that, but what's going to happen once we get out?" She replied, either not hearing or choosing not to listen to my over-confidence that I knew she loved so much.

"We?" I asked not believing what I was hearing.

"Yes... WE... you idiot! Wherever you go, I'm coming with you." She insisted.

"But you have a nice life here, you shouldn't leave that behind." I pleaded with her.

"So do you though."

"Yeah... but... emm... I've got a reason to go out there: my Dad."

"Yeah... but... emm... so have I." she replied, mimicking me.

"Oh yeah, really, what's that then?" I asked dismissively, annoyed that she copied me.

"You..." she said in the cutest voice possible and started to cry softly.

"Oh, come on Bee, don't cry. Think of it as an opportunity for me to get away from here. You know, more than anyone that I've hated it in here since before I even realised there was a difference in body structures in boys and girls."

"But I don't want you out there all alone. That's why I need to come with you! So tell me this escape plan of yours, then!"

"Keep it down! Your Mom is just through the wall, remember! All she needs to do is tell my Mother we're planning this and she'll have us locked in her office while she reinforces the Vault door or something."

"Sorry, right, go on then."

"It's not an escape plan, because that suggests that we're going to be caught and half to hightail it out. Right, anyway, to summarise: we sneak out of your quarters; somehow get into my Mom's bedroom and steal her gun from her wardrobe while she sleeps; walk out the main entrance like we own the place; and, all the while avoiding security." I explained, "But that's only if we plan on leaving tonight. We can wait for a few days, but that would complicate things because we'd have to establish where and when to meet."

"But, either way, that doesn't explain how we're going to get past the main entrance guards..." She replied with concern.

"That's where this comes into the equation." I said cockily, gesturing at the pretend gun I made with my right hand.

Her eyes widened in shock and she managed to say. "You can't shoot them Callum; you're not a murderer!"

"No, you clown, no! I'll shoot it into the air or something and then they'll come running out and we'll just sneak by them."

"You sure that will work?"

"It has to. I said 'or something'. You know I'm good at quick thinking though anyway. It's there if it comes to it. Anyway, it's up to you: do you want to leave tonight, or wait a bit? And remember, if at any point you think it's not a good idea, you can turn back and I'll leave myself. I'm not forcing you to go with me, it's completely your choice."

"I'm coming with you, and that is that. As for when we leave, that's up to you because remember, it's your so-called plan. When would you like to leave?"

"My preference? Tonight. Because, I don't know if someone told you but I head-butted Mr. Brotch and burst his nose. He's going to tell my Mom about it tomorrow. I think I'd rather leave the vault with my Mother having a happy last memory of me. Just in-case I don't make it back, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get you. So when we doing this?"

"Wait until two in the morning to leave here. That's when the guards switch shifts. So there will be less of them around."

"Maybe you really have done some homework?" She asked with a laugh.

"I've been snooping around in my Mom's office for weeks now planning certain only really reason why I haven't come up with much is because there's not much to come up with! Most of the Vault's layout is below the level of the entrance."

"If you say so. Right, so now we wait?"

"And now we wait."

* * *

We stealthily sneaked past Christine Kendall and her boyfriend (but also Brogan's Dad) Freddy Gomez sleeping in their shared bedroom. _It seemed they never wanted to get married._ And so, our escape quest had begun.

All was uneventful until we arrived at the atrium, where we saw our first obstacle; the door guards. In order to access the upper-atrium stairway we needed to cross right by their field of view. Although, if we were caught in this early stage of the game, it wouldn't be too bad because we could always just say we needed the toilet or something stupid like that. It was once we had a gun that we couldn't be caught, because that would break at least five of the Vault rules and we'd be done for. I decided that we would have to back-track to the dining area, where we would go through the atrium door there. That door would take us out to the same side that the upper atrium stairs were on, which lead up to the Overseer's family quarters. This, sadly, cost us about twenty minutes of time where my friend's Mom and Dad could have found out we were gone.

Once we entered the atrium again from through the diner, it was a simple u-turn to the right to the upper-atrium staircase. A lone guard was crossing the catwalk in the upper atrium as we reached the top of the stairs. I crouched down low and crept into a shadowy corner of the corridor. Brogan stayed behind the wall. In the position I was in, I could see the guard but he could not see me. The guard sat down at a table with his back to us and I signalled to Brogan to come with me. We didn't need to worry too much about making noise as the large computer mainframes in the (funnily enough) mainframe room next to the upper-atrium gave off a low hum that covered small amounts of sound. We got to the area outside my quarters when I had a great idea. I stopped dead in my tracks and Brogs, who was looking at the ground, bumped into the back of me. "Are you mad?" she said in something that was barely anything more than a whisper. "We can't stop now, we'll get caught."

"Shhh..." I said. "I've got an idea." I crept over to the desks in the hallway and tried to open up the drawers. They were locked. "Fuck."

"What were you trying to do?"

"That's where my Mom keeps our money. We'll need it if we're going outside."

"Good idea, where's the key do you think?"

"It'll be in my Mom's room. Next to her gun probably."

"Right, let's go."

I sneaked into my Mother's room alone and started rifling through the top drawer as quietly as I could, where I saw the password to the vault door written down on a piece of paper. It quite simply read: 'The Password for my terminal and the vault door is: CallumGavin101'. I pocketed the small piece of paper, as well as my Mother's fabled 10mm pistol; that had the Vault 101 insignia printed on it, and 3 full magazines of ammunition. The key for the drawers outside was in the second drawer down, next to a picture of my mother and I on my tenth birthday. I took the picture out of the frame and left it on my Mother's bed as my own way of saying goodbye. I then crept out of the room, not nearly half as quiet as I had entered, which I never actually noticed until I had closed the door behind me. I grinned and stuck out my tongue at Brogan, pulling out the pistol, showing it to her whilst inserting a magazine and flicking back the hammer of the gun with ease.

"Wow, watching those pre-war action movie holotapes really paid off didn't they?" I pointed out cockily.

"Smartass." She replied and smiled back.

I opened up the desks drawers and almost creamed myself at what I saw. In total I had $800!

"Holy fucking sh-..." I hissed but was stopped with my female friend's hand over my mouth.

"Shut it you idiot!" She hissed into my ear, which made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and sent a shiver down my spine. I licked the inside of her hand and she ripped it away from my mouth and wiped her damp fingers on my face, disgusted with me.

As we entered the upper-atrium again, I thought that I heard someone coming up the stairs. I noticed that the guard was gone from the table that he was sitting at previously and thought that the noise might be him coming back again. I listened intently so I could confirm my suspicion. My ears were met with the rhythmic sound of footsteps climbing stairs. There wasn't enough time to run back and hide in the mainframe room and before I knew what I was doing, I had jumped the rail of the catwalk and landed hard almost three meters below with my feet stinging from the shock they absorbed. I mouthed up to Brogan to 'hurry up and jump' which eventually she did. The security officer turned the corner at the top of the stairs and missed seeing her by at most half a second. I caught her as gracefully as I could but let's face it, I'm not an action movie hero. and she landed in my arms, taking me down with her. I did well to drown out some of the noise of the fall which was hopefully enough. We waited for the patrolling guard above to disappear from view before we moved behind one of the support pillars for the upper-atrium. I now had to distract the two guards away from the main entrance door. Brogs whispered in my ear to shoot the gun at the far wall to get their attention. I decided it was a good enough plan and let off a single shot. The bullet ricocheted away with a spark and I could have sworn I heard the bullet whizzing past my ear. Although, that being said, it was probably the ringing in my ears from the aftermath of hearing, by far, the very loudest thing I'd ever heard in my life! The noise was deafening! It must have woken up everybody in the vault. The two guards, who I recognised as officers Wolfe and Park, made a beeline for the back wall, batons drawn. It was then easy enough to slip past them but sadly as I was closing the entrance door behind us, one of the officers shouted after us.

"Hold it right there!" Cover blown, we ran straight to the vault door where I wirelessly connected my Pip-Boy to the control panel as fast as I could. I typed in the password that was in Mom's drawer on the touch-screen input command box that came up on my Pip-Boy and pulled the lever. Just as I did that a booming klaxon blared out.

"Oh my God... you actually opened it..." Blurted an innocent voice from Gogo. The door behind us burst open and out came the two security officers. I quickly stopped them by holding the gun up at them threateningly.

"FREEZE!" I shouted, shaking violently in fear.

"Come on, Callum, don't do anything you'll regret." Officer Park said, visibly calmer than I. The vault door made a grinding sound and I turned round slightly to see if we could move back and get out of the vault. That small loss of concentration was all the security members needed. I felt the gun being wrenched out of my hands and my face held securely against the floor. I no longer cared about myself so I sprung my left arm free which was being held at the wrist by Wolfe. _No prizes for guessing why I, being left handed and a teenager, had surprisingly strong wrist muscle!_ I took out the $800 from my back pocket and threw it at my horrified friend.

"Bee, RUN! I will follow soon! Wait for me." I shouted when I noticed Wolfe making a move towards her. She didn't need to be told twice; as soon as I said it she was off. Sprinting for the wooden gate that separated Vault 101 from the atomic wasteland.

"I don't care what the Overseer says, I'm not going out there." Said Wolfe rather sheepishly as I was handcuffed and taken back to my raging Mother.

* * *

My Mother and security chief, Suzie Mack, were standing whispering quietly to each other as I sat on my bed sulking (but secretly trying my best to listen).

"Am... a... tunnel... office... not guarded. Does... know... it?" Gomez was saying to Mom.

"I don't think he does. I've never told him." Mom replied, finding it harder to keep her voice down in her obviously angry state. My Mom looked at me and I stared back, my eyes starting to water heavily, but I was not wanting to cry in the presence of someone I wasn't related to. I knew it was just tears of red-hot anger, nothing else but that didn't stop it from making it worse. My Mom seemed to notice because she sent Suzie away.

"Callum, what the hell did you think you were doing? What have I told you about this Vault? About how you've to never leave it! That wasn't the first time earlier on I'd told you to promise you wouldn't try to go out wasn't a joke." _That doesn't mean you should be able to keep me here against my own will._

"I... I... I really don't know. I just... wanted to see Dad."

"I understand that Callum, I do, but I don't see why you would lie to me so blatantly like that. And what's worse, you've put Brogan in danger now by sentencing her to her fate in the Wasteland. But even still, I'm not angry at you." She said with a tear in her eye, and I looked up at her, "No, I'm not angry; but I'm very disappointed in you for lying to me like that." She explained. "I see why you would do what you did, but I'm just upset that you lied to me. Why can't you just have told me you wanted to find him. We could've sent one of the scouts out to look for your Father." She smiled and hugged me tight.

"I-I wont try go out there a-again." I said, finding it very difficult to string a sentence together without having to take a deep breath. Mom thought it was because I was crying, she was wrong. I didn't even know where this rage had come from.

"I know you won't. I trust you... okay... I'll get you a glass of water, wait here. " She stood up and walked out of my room. Okay..._ to be honest, at that moment in time, I actually had decided not to ever try and go back out there as long as they got a search party out for Brogan._ I calmed down a bit whilst Mom was away, enough for me to realise that she had been gone for over 10 minutes. I just surmised that she was probably talking to a security member or something like that. Finally, after 20 minutes of calming down, she came back with a large glass of water.

"Mom, I only promise not to try to escape if you send out a search party right now to find Brogan." I said with a determined look on my face.

"Don't worry honey, we have already done so." she said with a sad smile. I drank the water greedily. I realised now that I was extremely thirsty and dehydrated probably from all of the sweating that came with the nerves.) My leg was heavy from shaking so much and every one of my nails were down to the quick. I noticed that the water tasted funny and to my horror, I started to feel very woozy and tired. Suzie Mack came back in the room, so I thought I may be able to listen to their conversation for a bit before I really did pass out. _I can't believe my own Mother would drug me... what a BITCH! Just another Overseer corrupted by the power. _The library was full of books written in the last couple hundred years about previous Overseers doing this sort of thing! I started pretending to sway and, without warning, fell face first into my Mom's lap.

"Okay, Suzie, send a two-man search party out for Miss Kendall in the morning in Megaton. If she was not there, tell the party to come straight back to the Vault and tell everyone that they found her dead. On the other hand, if she is in Megaton, tell the team to give the girl 5000 caps and tell her to live her life happily. Do not, under any circumstances, let her come back into this Vault. If she is allowed back in and she tells people what is out there, then there will be an uprising just like before. I'm not wanting any more lives being lost because of the Almodov..." Was the last I heard before I really did pass out.

* * *

I opened my eyes and checked the time on my Pip-Boy: 6:17 am. I then remembered what had just happened a couple of hours previous. I took a quick surroundings scan. Officers Wolfe and Park were standing in the corner of my room, making sure I didn't 'leave' unexpectedly. _Great, so now I'm a prisoner in my own home. _A brilliant idea came to me. I sat up on the side of my bed, noticing I had a fucking splitting headache. I pretended to fall to the ground and on to my knees, clutching my stomach and making an agonising wail. Sure enough, my plan worked and over came officer Wolfe with concerned look on his face.

"Callum, are you o..." I had pulled my baseball bat out from between my legs that was stashed under my bed. Wolfe had been uppercut perfectly under the chin, which had taken him by surprise obviously and he had flipped back in the air, kicking Park as he did so. With Wolfe knocked unconscious on the floor and Park dazed, I took my chance and went to crack Park with the bat; but he had recovered. He blocked the strike short with his baton and advanced towards me with it. I completely froze up in fright as he took another step.

"Pl... please duh... don't kill me." I pleaded dropping my bat. Don't get me wrong, I'd been in fights and whatever in the past but these Vault security guards, particularly the door guards were beasts! He put his baton away and I knew my ploy had worked as he took out handcuffs. I waited until he was a foot away from me, and then rammed my foot hard into his private parts. I picked up the handcuffs from the floor that he had dropped when I kicked him and handcuffed him to my bed (thankfully it was bolted to the ground). I looked into my Mother's room to see her sleeping with an empty packet of sleeping pills and a half-full glass of water beside her on her end table. I couldn't help but thinking of the irony of the fact that her own trap let me get away and I laughed as I slipped out of our quarters.

I decided that, since I didn't have a gun, I would definitely need some of the stimpaks that Dr. Gomez gave me. They seemed to basically fix anything that was wrong with you, _except for this damn niggling pain in my chest!_ I crept down to the atrium, seeing that the door guards that were on shift now were sleeping. _God, are they trying to make it easy for me? _I easily tiptoed by them and sneaked to the clinic, where I began searching for stimpaks. There were none in the main clinic room, so I went into the operating theatre in the back room where I was sure I would find a few. I picked up a couple of medical instruments that I thought may suffice as a weapon. Finding none made me explode with anger because I had just wasted at least ten minutes for a fruitless journey. Blinded by rage, I threw a nearby hot plate at the wall in rage. It hit a section of the wall where a Revelation 21:6 framed bible quote was, causing it to smash and implode into a hollowed out part of the wall behind it. I reached into the hollowed out part curiously and found a battered and slightly rusty 10mm pistol plus a good few full magazines of ammunition. After inserting one in and pulling back the hammer on the gun, I put it in the waste band of my jeans on the left side and pocketed the ammo best I could. I weighed out my options.

_Well the entrance is guarded by sleeping guards and obviously I can't try the same trick as before because they'll have been told what I did._ I quickly raked through my memories of anything the guards had mentioned about other ways to get to the vault door. I found the answer…when I was passing out from the sleeping pills, I heard Officer Mack say: 'tunnel…office…not guarded.' _So office... office... my Mom's office!_

I ran up to my Mom's office and stopped in front of the door. _Oh Shit, how do I unlock the door?_ I started to panic until I remembered the scalpel and tweezers which I thought would come in handy as potential weapons before I found the gun in the wall and an idea shot to min

I put the thin tweezers in the top of the lock and started to apply pressure to the bottom of it with the scalpel. Finally, after 10 minutes of tweaking and adjusting, I managed to unlock the door which automatically locked behind me as I entered my Mother's office. I looked for the tunnel that apparently existed in every corner of the room. A stab in the dark directed me to the Overseer's terminal. I logged on using the same password for the vault door that I saw on the paper scrap and sure enough, there it was: 'open Overseer's tunnel'. I clicked on the option and almost pissed myself in surprise when a loud hissing noise sounded behind me. It was the sound of a secret tunnel presenting itself from underneath my Mother's desk! I picked up a black marker pen from the desk and wrote on the wall in huge letters: 'You lied to me, Mom. I'm not sorry for this. Absolute power corrupts absolutely!'

* * *

After navigating through the tunnel for a few minutes, for the second time in four hours, I opened the door to Vault 101 and for the first time ever, stepped into the rocky cavern outside. I changed the door password of the vault door to something crude and ironic that I would never, ever forget using my Pip-Boy; and closed the large titanium gear behind me. Finally, this was it, I was no longer a Vault Dweller; I was now an inhabitant of the Capital Wasteland. I didn't know how unfortunate I was about to become.

**In reply to Radio Free Death's review. Thanks for the review first and foremost. Second, just to confirm, I meant the Goat year has been changed by two years, this character just has a birthday later on in the year. Some characters would be 17 and some 18 when their 'year' does the exam. In the game all of the characters did their G.O.A.T. On the same day so it does make sense. As for the rest, just give it a chance to get in to the swing of things. Difficult to judge on just 3000 words.**


	3. A Place Named Right

**Just to let ya'll know that whenever I put brackets round someone's name in bold during a chapter, it represents a point of view change. Please review, thanks.**

** CHAPTER 3: A PLACE NAMED RIGHT**

The first thing that hit me was the fact that this 'outside' place was unbelievably bright. The second I stepped out, I was blinded by a sheet of white and I thought I'd died. Obviously I hadn't, I had just been overwhelmed as, being born and raised in a vault, my eyes had never ever seen anything so intensely illuminated before.

"Mmm!" I moaned, "Yeah remember when I had corneas?" I complained to no one. I looked down at my Pip-Boy to check the time and it was only 7:30am. _Why is this damn sun so bright then?_ After 5 minutes or so, my vision had returned to normal and I noticed a small sign that said 'scenic overlook' on it just in front of me. I was mesmerized by what I saw. The 'scene', so to speak, was, what can only be described as, 'WOW', if that can be used as a suitable adjective. I could see for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon and... _well I was going to say beyond but that's impossible_. I saw large landmarks in the distance, one of which I recognised as the Washington Monument from one of our vault's geography/history lessons. I was torn out of my trance by a shrilling scream that was unquestionably, inescapably my best friend's voice.

I quickly backtracked toward the wooden door that lead to the Vault's cave and u-turned to the left, skidding down a hill. I turned left at the bottom, in the direction that I heard the cry. As I ran down a concrete road, I neared a small village. Sprinting past houses at speeds I didn't know I could reach, a red mist came across my field of vision and any rational thoughts were erased from my mind. Just up ahead, a large, red rocket came into view and, underneath it, lay two figures that the noise seemed to be coming from. The person underneath, who I realised was Brogan, was trying to wriggle away, but the man on top had her held firm in place. Only now, as I was two hundred meters away, could I understand what she was screaming, "GET OFF ME! OWW THAT HURTS, YOU BASTARD! STOP IT!" The prick was raping Brogs, my friend! I accelerated toward them, even faster than before, narrowing the gap by at least nine or ten meters per second.

"Stop movin' bitch!" The stranger slapped her. I could almost feel her pain in my cheek as I neared them, "Yer only makin' it sorer for yersel'!" he laughed manically. There was something about the way he spoke – it was full of such evil and hate. As I approached, the man heard me and turned round. All he would have seen, before he was hit, was a size ten vault 101 boot flying towards his face at blistering pace. I full-force volleyed him in the the jaw with my good left foot, as if he were a football.

"Get the fuck away from my friend!" I roared at him with unbelievable rage that I did not know I was capable of. The stranger snapped backwards and rolled a bit before recovering from the attack and calmly standing. He slowly and methodically pulled up his trousers and faced me. Due to me being just under average height, he was almost a good head taller than me and the man seemed to take this to his advantage. He smiled, showing very few rancid looking teeth, and took two steps closer to me.

"Or w'at? You'll call yer Daddy on me?" he baited, "Your balls prolly ha'nt even dropped yet." I glanced at Brogan, to see if she was all right, hoping that she'd had sense to clear away from us; although, she kept the way she was, silently crying, with her hands covering her bleeding crotch.

"You're a fucking waste of space. You just raped her!?"

"Hahahaha, an' you enjoyed watchin', kid! C'mon let's settle this li' men!" He exclaimed, raising his fists and going in for the first punch. But I was ready; I dodged under and leaned to the right, where I punched the man full-force in the stomach. Mistake. It felt like I was hitting steel.

"Uhn!" I grunted, as most of my knuckles burst open. I took a look at his stomach and realised that I did, in fact, punch steel – he had plates of metal all over his body. _Armour... figures._ The man felt no pity for me, obviously, as he just laughed fiendishly and went to punch me again. I still hadn't dropped my guard, though, so I easily dodged again and connected the first decent punch of the fight: a left over-arm whack, that made him stumble back a few steps. This barely phased him, though, because he came back and fought just as hard as before, all the while shouting that I was a 'slippery bastard' because he still hadn't hit me yet. I jumped back swiftly to avoid another swing and just as quickly, sprung back to attack again and this time gave a left straight square on the mouth which really hurt him. He fell back, dazed, into the fence that surrounded the rocket on two sides. I was getting the beating of him now... me... actually going to beat a fully-grown adult in a fight! The boy who got bullied by a bunch of old-school wannabes who were trying to follow in their fathers' footsteps! Just as I began to get complacent, the stranger made his move. He began to punch with his left, so I quickly ducked down to dodge, which I realized was my first error. The man had only feigned with his left and, as I went to dodge, he used his right hand to uppercut me flat on the nose which had surely broken it. Blood squirted out in all directions, but there was no let-off from my attacker because, instantly after, he gave a agonising lucky-placed knee to my sore rib and a ferocious hook to the temple.

My vision swam and stars sprung into life in my vision. They chased each other around and danced about the place. I tried to follow them with my eyes but they kept disappearing. I fell back onto the concrete ground on my ass and hit my head on one of the rocket's leg-like supports. When my sight cleared, I realised the man was loading a large hunting rifle. He looked at me with a sadistic smile on his face and said, "You shoul' know kid, the wastelan' is a very dangerous place, speshly for li'l wannabe heroes like you. I shoul' jus' kill ya, but I wanna show ya me fuckin' yer li'l girlfrien' firs'. I'm gonna make 'er cry like a li'l baby, ya hear? Then I'll kill you in fron' of her. I think I'll take 'er back to the boys at the school, so they can have a shot of 'er too!" He explained cruelly with extreme malice in his eyes.

He moved over to Brogan and dragged her over to me so I could see everything that was going to happen. After a lot of struggling she managed to headbutt the evil man square between the eyes, which made him go mental. He grabbed his hunting rifle from his back and aimed it at her face as he floored her with a simple push and prepared to shoot. The world around me seemed to stop.

* * *

I remembered that feeling from on my tenth birthday when Freddie tried to punch me after I told him to go fuck himself as he said I got special treatment because I was the Overseer's son. Time seemed to stop at that moment; I easily leant back to dodge his punch and broke Freddie's nose with the bulletproof screen on my new Pip-Boy that my Mother gave me.

* * *

I pulled out the pistol I found in the clinic at an unbelievable speed and picked my target – his head. Before I knew what happened, I had fired all 12 shots in the magazine of the pistol in the space of a second. This caused my left arm to fly into the air because of the gun's recoil. One of the last bullets I had fired had gone up and ricocheted off of the rocket and rebounded back down toward me. It had embedded itself into my left leg. The force and shock of the bullet caused me to slump off the rocket leg that was keeping me upright. The man's head exploded as, at least, 4 bullets penetrated it, making him roll off of my friend. He flopped away on the ground with a weird 'sloshing' sound, completely lifeless. He was dead. I had killed him.

At that point, I didn't care that much about anything else. _I have just killed a man. Taken a gun to his head and ended his life. Surely this man had family, and if not, friends. Friends that will miss and mourn him and cry for their loss. And it's entirely my fault._ I would have stayed like that forever, sitting in a trance; completely disgusted at myself for what I had done, if it were not for Brogs coming over to hug and thank me for saving her. I was shaking uncontrollably and greatly resisting the urge to throw up. I was so deep in my own world that I never even noticed as she helped pick me up and let me put most of my weight on her as my shot leg meant I couldn't walk. She half-dragged me along a dirt path that opened up to a large, metal city which I recognised as Megaton from the pictures on my Mom's terminal. She then led me inside...

* * *

**(Harden Simms)**

_Ah... more newcomers, _I thought as I heard the gates of Megaton opened. When I reached the top of the main entrance hill, I noticed that it was a vault dweller, or, two, rather: one a boy, the other, a girl._ Wow the first ones in 18 years... ever since..._ As I neared them, I noticed that they were completely torn up, particularly the boy. The girl, as far as I could see, had her jumpsuit ripped around the shoulder and lower arm area and had a large amount of drying blood between her thighs on her jeans. She had long, black hair that was meant to be tied up but had been messed about and had fallen down over her shoulders. She had bright, emerald green eyes that lit up her face and irradiated optimism. The boy was white as a sheet, as if he had seen a ghost. He had dirty blonde, spiked hair that was swept over to his right side and irradiant, electric-blue eyes. His physical state was completely messed up: he had obviously been in some kind of fight. _More like series of fights._ He had done something to his right arm, as he had it seemingly stuck to his chest. His face was massacred: his nose badly broken and bleeding; large cuts littered his cheeks and left eyebrow; and even had a black eye as well. He was a small boy, no bigger than five foot nine, which was only a little bigger than the girl holding him up.

* * *

**(Callum)**

I entered Megaton with Brogan holding me up so I didn't collapse. "I'll be damned, another newcomer. Or a pair of newcomers, I should say. Jesus, you two look like you've been through hell and back. I'm sorry, where are my manners, name's Harden Simms, Town Sheriff and my Father Lucas is the Mayor, when the need arises." The man said, appearing from a very steep hill just in front of us. I could tell from the way he spoke and held himself that he was an upbeat, happy-hearted man. "And you two are?" The guy was a very round faced man of African-American origin, who appeared to be in his mid twenties. He had a short, buzz-cut hairdo that was covered by a brown cowboy hat. I looked away from the man and vomited inside my own mouth. Knowing that there was nothing else I could do at that moment in time, I reluctantly swallowed the small load of stomach acid and partially digested vault food, which did not taste very good the second time around.

"B-Brogan Kendall." My friend replied, and when I said nothing added, "A-and this is Callum Almodovar. We're from Vault 101." She added.

"I think he needs to see the Doctor, but you best have a lot of money, you'll need it."

"Yeah, erm... thank you, sir. You said you were the Sheriff?" he nodded, "Well, some... man just raped me and almost killed us both."

"What! Do you know his name? I'll have him thrown right out of Megaton if he lives here!"

"No... erm... he's dead, but only because he tried to kill me... Callum shot him. But he had to!"

"Whoa, slow down, slow down. What did he look like?"

"Well he had a green mohawk and like, metal plates attached to his body."

"Raider... fuckers don't deserve to live!" After the Sheriff said that I perked up a bit. _Yeah, he didn't deserve to live... he... he... he raped my friend! He got what was coming!_

"Erm... would eight hundred dollars be enough to cover Callum's medical bill, do you think?"

"Dollars? What the hell girl, out here, the currency is caps?"

"What? You mean like bottle caps?"

"Yeah... well, you'd better go up to see Moira at craterside supply. She'll fix you up for free probably... but be careful she's... uh... different. But before you go... Callum was it? What age are you?"

"Ayy... Ayy... eighteen." I said, trying to sound manly, but it came out as no more than a stuttered squeak.

"You sure about that boy?"

"Y-ye... no... I'm only seventeen." I gave up, there was no point in lying as this man was clearly trying to help us.

"Well, like I said, Moira can patch you up for free... it's her rule, anyone under eighteen and she'll patch them up for free. Sure is making Megaton busy and full of families these days. How 'bout you missy? What are you, like sixteen or something?"

"I just turned eighteen." Brogs replied, looking away, ashamed.

"Well you might want to keep that on the down low and go as well... you know what I mean?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Just turn right here, then keep going and it's the second building on your right. Careful on the walkways though, they can be dangerous for people who aren't used to them. Do you need any help with this one?" he asked, gesturing at me as I obviously still couldn't walk myself due to my leg which was starting to become really, really hot, like it was burning. Without even standing on it, it throbbed painfully.

"Please Sir." She replied weakly.

* * *

"Oh dear Lord!" Squawked the lady called Moira when she saw us, "Now dears, I know it hurts but if you can hold on a second, I need to make some notes for my book that I'm writing before I patch you up. Now how do you feel? You first." She pointed over my shoulder.

"Well, I've probably been exiled from the only place I've called home in my full life, then I was taken advantage of by a disgusting man who's head exploded not a metre away from me. I think I'm covered in his blood."

"Oh... I see. I'm so sorry for you."

"We are in pain, please just help us now and then you can ask questions later!" Bee began to get angry, and snapped at Moira.

"Oh I know dear, of course. Okay, why don't you head upstairs while I tend to your friend here, those wounds could get infected if I wait any longer! And we wouldn't want that now would we?" Brogan gave a sad wave goodbye to me and trudged up a set of stairs in a back room. I saw her appear overhead on a walkway, where she sat down on a chair and began to rest her eyes. The room seemed to become less bright when her eyelids closed.

"And what happened to you, young man?" Moira chirped as she turned to face me. Her greasy and dirty vibrant red hair swinging to touch my face. _The last person to call me 'young man' was Mom._

"I don't feel too great." I felt really light-headed and stumbled back two steps before a wall stopped me from falling. Moira led me over slowly to a large living room chair at the far end of the shop where she began her examination.

She injected me with four stimpaks in total: One for my rib (which had bruised up again); a couple, obviously for my leg for the gunshot; And one in the neck to fix my broken nose. Moira had to set my nose first, so the bone would heal properly. The sickening crack that my nose bones made when she did it was enough to make me cry out, never mind the sharp, burning agony that came with it. By the time she was done, my eyes were wet with tears. Last of all, she cleaned and covered up with bandages the cuts in my knuckles from the punching the Raider's armour. It was very painful having to take out the fragments of rust in the gashes as well.

"Why don't you go and sleep on my bed dear, God knows you've earned it." Moira said after cleaning the blood from my face. I was led upstairs and over to a large double bed that I flopped on to. I only noticed now, that my lack of sleep the night before had really caught up on me, as my eyelids became so heavy that I only had time to say a couple of words to Gogo before I fell asleep.

**Hope ya'll liked the touch with the little bit in Harden's POV. It was just to give you an idea of what the characters looked like.**


	4. Picking Up The Trail

** CHAPTER 4: PICKING UP THE TRAIL**

I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep. And even if I did, it wouldn't be for very long. So, after hours of thinking and bursts of ten minute doses, I brought my Pip-Boy up to my face and switched to the notes section. Once there, I began typing into the touch screen: "Revelation 21:6, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." It wasn't until I had read it out a few times that I realised I was getting progressively louder and, in doing so, had woken up Brogan who was lying in the bed beside me. She budged up close to me and gave me a hug, trying to comfort me as she could tell that I was deeply troubled.

"We'll find him, Callum. We came out here to meet your Father, and that's exactly what we'll do." She said reassuringly, believing that that was what was on my mind. _God, mouthful! _She was wrong. I mean, I had just killed someone for the first time, and no matter who it was or why I had done it, I had still taken a life. I mean, that's a lot to handle for someone who's never been in anything even close to a life of death situation. I mean, sure the Tunnel Snakes were constantly beating me up and genuinely pissing me off, but I was never in danger of losing my life from it.

I put on my best poker face before replying. "Well, let's start then, shall we?" I thought about making a quest in my Pip-Boy, that layed out objectives and places or people of interest, but it all seemed a bit too cheesy, so I just asked Brogan's opinion on what our next move should be.

"I reckon asking Moira would be a good place to start. She seems like the type that would know everyone's business, if you know what I mean. If your Father passed through here recently, she would know." She suggested, clearly having thought about it at some point. I nodded in agreement.

* * *

"Moira, do you mind if we ask you a couple of questions?"

"Well of course not. I'll give any help I can to my little research assistants." She exclaimed a little too happily, "What is it you need answered?" I shook my head in a comical attempt to rid my mind of her names for us.

"No." I said dismissively, "Anyway... just to let you know, there is a reason that we came out into the Wasteland other than for a holiday adventure." I explained with a sad smile to my friend.

"Oh, and what's that then?"

"Well... we're... eh... looking for someone... someone who came from our Vault."

"Oh, I'm sorry but I can't help you with that, because I've not met any new Vault Dwellers for... oh... about 18 years now, I think."

"Yeah. Well that's the person we're looking for."

"Oh, you mean the Lone Wanderer?" she cried, an extremely large smile brandishing across her face.

"The Lone who?"

"Well, that's what the radio DJ of Galaxy News Radio calls him. Only a few people know his name and I am, sadly, not one of them. But anyway, I don't know how to tell you this..." She trailed off. I stared, mouth slightly agape, fearing the worst. "But... emm... no one has seen him in years, I'm sorry." I felt all the blood leave my face as my excitement all left in one big flourish. Moira noticed this, and instantly attempted to get me to spring back with some encouraging words, "But, we don't have to assume the worst! I mean, he could have just moved to live in New Vegas or something.

"Moved... to live... in Vegas? Really? You realise how far away that is, right?"

"Well I don't know, I suppose he had saved the people of this Wasteland so many times he might have thought that there was another place in need of his help." She suggested, her attempt to make me feel better actually appealing to my sense of humour.

"Saved the people?" Brogs asked for me.

"Well, he saved all of the people of Megaton once from the big atomic bomb in the town centre by disarming it. Emm... he fixed the Galaxy News broadcast relay. Then he freed all those slaves in the Pitt and Paradise Falls by buying their freedom with basically every bit of money and tech that he had. Well, I suppose the Pitt wasn't the Capital Wasteland, but still was still nice, nonetheless. Freed Gob the bartender here at Megaton from his near enough slave life. And then brought everyone in the Wasteland clean water that fills the tidal basin, now un-irradiated. After that, he and his new Brotherhood of Steel Army friends then took down the Enclave. The only downside of his amazing work was the extinction of those poor Mirelurks from the purified water. Must've needed the radiation to survive." I stared at her, completely confused from her ramlings and she added, "Oh... the Enclave are... were..." She corrected herself, "The bad guys and the Brotherhood are the good guys. And Mirelurks are big crab-like men." Moira explained, as if it made me understand more. "Um... the last I heard of the Lone Wanderer, he had went off to destroy Vault 87. Here I'll point it out to you on your Pip-Boy." I put a new marker on the screen at the far west of the map on the screen where Moira showed me. "Oh and before you go, ask around for more information on where he last was, though, because remember that my information is around 17 or 18 years old. Talk to Mayor Simms, he might know more."

I had had enough of Moira for just now and made to leave her shop. As I opened the door, I heard her mutter to a tall, unemotional man that seemed to stand guard for her or something.

"The Lone Wanderer... now that's someone I've not heard from or spoken about for a long time."

The door closed behind us with a creak and my head began to hurt as I tried to compile all of the information she gave us.

"What does she mean by 'he went off to destroy Vault 87'?" I complained, throwing my hands up in the air in frustration.

"I don't know but this place certainly sounds weird doesn't it though? I mean, 'crab-like men'? What is that about?"

"Well I guess we'll find out soon enough? Hmm... I wonder if that radio station she spoke about still talks about him?" I thought aloud.

In the radio section of my Pip-Boy, a small list of stations came up and I tuned in to the 'GNR' that Moira Brown spoke of, only to find that we were being talked about!

"_Listen up Wasteland, it is I, Three Dog, your friendly neighbourhood disc jockey! What's a disc? Hell if I know, but I'm gonna keep talkin' anyway! Now, it's time for the news. All you old 'yins remember the Lone Wanderer right? Guy that came from Vault 101 a good while back? No, no, not him! You know, the one that kinda saved the world and all that? Well, guess what, kiddies? I've got a brand new special report that a couple of new Lone Wanderers have climbed out of that rusty blast door. Hmm, __**couple**__ of __**Lone**__ Wanderers? That doesn't really make sense. How about, couple of New Wanderers? Man,__ the revolution begins again, kiddies. Anyway, back on with the music..."_

"That was certainly interesting." I remarked, trying to overlook the fact that we were radio celebrities for a few seconds. I shared a grimace with the other New Wanderer and turned off the radio.

"I'm surprised he managed to get his information that quickly... Hey, look!" She pointed down to the left and my eyes followed, "There's Sheriff Simms, he'll know where we can find his Father is so we can ask him about yours. The Mayor will probably know more about the wasteland than anyone else in the town." As we navigated down to the bottom of the crater (_I say navigated because we had to go down a small cliff)_ that was Megaton, we passed an old man with a large Chinese Assault Rifle on his back. He turned to us with a disgusted look on his face.

"Aww, it's the little love-bird kiddies from the vault!" he goaded before turning to Brogan, "Hey sexy, I'm Jericho, how about you come on back to my shack and I'll satisfy you like a real man?" He smiled, narrowing his eyes at me. I clenched my jaw in anger at his pathetic attack at us.

"Save your breath old man, 'cause you'll need it to blow up your date later!" She backfired with, which left a silenced and very angry Jericho behind. As we neared Simms I turned to my friend.

"Why do I think I've heard that before?" I pointed out.

"I don't know." She replied dismissively.

"You got that from a movie holotape didn't you? I can't remember which one, though." I accused, pointing at her.

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that!" She replied with a smirk.

"Ah touché... Sheriff!" I exclaimed and he turned to face us, "Do you know where the Mayor is? We need to ask him something."

"Yeah sure kids, he'll probably be up in the saloon." He gestured behind us up to the south side of Megaton. We climbed up the route the Sheriff pointed out for us until we came to a place called Gob's saloon. As the door was opened, it was like walking into a wall of... well... _smell!_

It was almost unbearable: a mixture of liquor, over-used females and sweat had combined together to form a sickly, damp stench. I could see a man sitting in the corner on a lounge chair with a Sheriff badge that had 'mayor' written on it. So, we warily went over to him and asked if he was Lucas Simms, to which he agreed.

"Well, I wonder if you can help me. I'm looking for my... I'm looking for the Lone Wanderer." I inquired, not sure if divulging my identity was a good idea.

"I'll be damned, I've been spoken to or spoken about him in a good, long time now. Anyway, there's no easy way to say this, but... the last anyone heard of of the Wanderer, he was clearing out Vault 87 of Super Mutants. I'm telling you son, others may sugar coat it for you but I can't. No one, even him, could walk outta there. I'm sorry, he was a good man." He said, with attempted solace.

"I refuse to accept that." I dismissed him, "So, I'm going to Vault 87 to find out if he died not. Sounds like a plan!"

"No way, son, you're just a kid! The wasteland ain't fit for anyone to live in, let alone a young 'in. But, I know that whatever I say ain't gonna change your mind 'cause I can see that look in your eye. The same one that the Lone Wanderer and his Father had! The one a strong willed man gets when he has a purpose. Oh and... wait a minute... I thought I recognised you!" The elderly man chuckled, taking off his hat, showing a small afro of curly greying hair, "Here's something that will help you in your trip." He held out a large bag that jingled when he gave it to me, "That's two hundred bottle caps! Let's call it... insurance for the pair of you. If you do have to go out there, get a few guns for yourself first. And if you actually do manage to get to Vault 87, you can't go in the normal way. There's too much radiation for us humans to get in that entrance, so I suggest that you see if you can gain passage through Lamplight Caverns to the south. He showed us it on my Pip-Boy map. That'll get you in, but son and girlie, please don't attempt the trip; it would be bad for the Lone Wanderer's memory if his s- a couple of people died looking for him, know what I mean? Oh and one last thing - because I know you're going to go anyway no matter what I say - if you get to Lamplight, do not say that you are sixteen or over, that'll get you kicked out before you even get in, violently so as well."

"Why not?" I said for the pair of us.

"The whole place is a city for young 'uns like yourselves, maybe a bit younger. They don't let any grown up in at all. And one more thing. If you do manage to catch up with the old dog, tell him Simms says 'I still sleep better at night', he'll know what you mean. It's just something I used to say."

"I will do. Well thank you sir, we will need all the help we can get, I'm sure." I said, gratefully accepting the bag. But, inside, feeling completely dead. My Dad can't be dead... no... I refuse to accept it, at least, not until I'm one hundred percent sure. Deep in thought, I walked away from the Mayor and stared down at the floor. Just as I was about to leave the saloon, a hand was placed on my shoulder. I took no notice of the hand, believing it to be Brogan's, until a rough, guttural voice stopped me in my tracks.

"Hey, smoothskin, are you okay? You need anything?" It said hoarsely. I spun around, wondering who the voice came from.

"Gah! Fuck!" I gasped, "What are you?" I stumbled backwards and pressed my back against the metal door, staring at his ruined face in terror. Brogan sank in to the wall beside me and grabbed my hand, in just as much horror as me. The 'man', I believed it to be, had very little skin and hair, and a complete lack of facial features. _How is he even alive... unless? Zombie!?_

"What?" He raised his forhead (due to having no eyebrows to raise) and let go of me, not looking offended at all. I pulled my hand from Brogs' grasp and latched on to my friend's arm, noticing that she was even more scared than I was, "You never seen a ghoul before?" He then glanced at her's and my Pip-Boys and vault zippers before realising why, "Oh, you're from the vault. Haven't seen any of you since... Gav- him..." He obviously was about to say my Father's name. But the way he said 'him' and trailed of afterwards showed that he must've not just liked him as a friend! They really must have been best friends!

"No, what's a ghoul?" I asked, still rooted to the spot.

"Some poor souls in the wasteland get exposed to too much radiation but don't have the good fortune to die. After that, slowly, our skin and parts of our face start to rot and fall off until eventually you look like me."

"It's not that bad actually, I mean, it looks kinda cool." I lied, attempting to apologise for my reaction before.

"Yeah, I know you're just trying to be nice, but that makes me feel better, nonetheless. I'm used to every asshole smoothskin giving me shit just because I look like a corpse. For that, if you ever need a drink or anything else just come to me and I'll sell to you for a discount." he said. My heart skipped a beat, I mean, in the vault you had to ask some random resident you didn't know to get you booze or someone's older brother or sister. You were royally fucked if you got caught, mind you, but now this man was offering me, not just drinks, but at a lower price as well. _I assume he means alcoholic drinks. _I knew that under any circumstances, I would've jumped at this chance to get a drink, but I realised that it would probably be really dangerous and reckless, considering the environment we were in.

"Well, thanks a lot, but we're okay on that front for just now. Unless, do you have any water at all? We're both pretty thirsty." I looked to Brogan and she nodded in agreement.

"How do you like it, dirty or purified?" The man asked, disappearing behind the bar counter.

"Eh... Pur...ified, please?" I met eyes with my friend's again, with an incredulous look on my face, believing that he was joking with us. He rose from behind the counter looking serious, so he must not have been joking.

"Here you go," He handed me two bottles labled 'Aqua Pura', "Name's Gob, by the way."

"I'm Callum, and my silent companion is Brogan." The latter handed me the large wad of notes we took from the vault when I remembered the caps that the Sheriff gave us.

"Oh, don't let some of the folks around here see you wave that big bag of caps around."

"How much is that then, in, ahh... caps... is it?"

"Usually twelve caps but none this time, just because you were nice to me. But it you want, I can give you some real money for that pre-war stuff."

"Oh?" Brogan looked up, bemused.

"Yes, I collect it you see. Now how much have you got?"

"$800."

"How does 400 caps sound for that then?"

"Yeah that sounds fine, nothing to compare it to, mind you." I laughed. We waved goodbye to Gob after we made our deal, and were finally able to breath fresh air. We meandered around the town, along the walkways and platforms, until we reached a quiet cliff on the edge of town where we sat down on the dusty ground.

"You know, I'm surprised you didn't take up Gob on his offer for drink. Usually you would go nuts at any chance to get drunk!" Brogan teased, massaging my shoulders in an attempt to annoy me.

"Shaddup!"

"Wow, do you know how long we slept in Moira's for?" She exclaimed, looking at her Pip-Boy. _Yeah, right, slept. _I made to look at my own when she covered my eyes, "No, no, guess the time." She smiled. I wasn't really in the mood for games but I played along with it.

"Half twelve in the morning?"

"It's not even fully dark yet, obviously not! Make a real guess."

"Ehh, like five or six?"

"Half eight!"

"Oh well it's almost your bed time!" I teased, pushing her hand away from my eyes and tickling her palm.

"Well you're one to talk, you're Mom made you be back in your quarters by ten! Even on the weekends!"

"Yeah, well what about that time when-" Our arguing was cut off when Moira shouted out to us.

"Hey, you guys!" Moira Brown called as she came round from the front of Craterside Supply, stumbling on the steep, rocky cliff. The cliff we were positioned on was just behind her shop, "If you're going to stay out late then take a key for the shop. You can sleep in there anytime you want, my little research assistants. Oh, and if you ever get hurt again, you know where to find me." She said cheerfully as she handed Brogan the key before scuttling off again.

"Didn't realise we had a place to stay." I whispered, meeting an equally confused gaze from my friend.

"Did you notice that it sounded as if she wanted us to get hurt again so she could take notes for that damned book?" She laughed and I joined in.

"Thanks Moira, we owe you one!" I shouted after her as she turned back round to the front of her shop again.

"I thought it would be completely dark at this sort of time in the outside. I mean it was dark when I left the vault." My friend remarked, taking a drink from her water.

"Well, it was like three in the morning before. Anyway it's only dark at this time when it's not... umm... what 'sit called, sum... sum-somthing. It's June and that's a sum-something month, I think." I said, completely unsure. I mean, it wasn't something that was taught in school due to it not being very relevant to vault life.

"You mean summer, idiot! How can you not know the names of the seasons?"

"Well it's not something that really pertains to vault life! It's not like they teach us in the school, is it?"

"Ooft, listen to you! 'Pertains'!" She scoffed as I finished off the last of my bottle and eyed hers greedily, "Away and chase yourself, blondie! You're not getting my water."

"Well I actually prefer, Callum, Calza, Cee dot Aldo, Calcium or Gayboy."

"Yeah, the latter one suits you very well, doesn't it?"

"No."

It was like being back at home. Two teenagers, best friends and not a care in the world. Minutes turned into hours, and all we spoke of was the 'old times' in the Vault. As if the short time being out in the Wasteland had started a new chapter in our lives. Almost as if we knew, deep down, that we probably never would return to the place we had always called home.

Eventually, we decided to go back into Moira's to sleep. Even the good few hours of rest we had earlier on in the day hadn't fully recharged our batteries as we were shattered.

"Callum, I'm starving. I've had nothing to eat since dinner the night we left the Vault."

"I know, Gogo, me too. We'll just have to wait until morning."

Moira had set up a large matress on the floor in the back room of her shop, underneath the stairs. It was complete with pillows and a duvet. Two bottles of water sat at the foot of the bed._ Christ, she's thought of everything_!

"I better go and lock the door." I whispered into my friend's ear as she lay down. I pickpocketed the key from her vault zipper. A minute later, I joined her and she had only just realised my sneaking ability.

"Did you take that key from me just there when you grabbed me to whisper in my ear?" She hissed in the darkness.

"I might have." I giggled and fell straight asleep, with only the sounds of our own rumbling stomachs to disturb us.

**Thanks to all you guys who have followed and favourited my fic, nice to know that folk actually give a damn what's put on this amazing site haha. And big special thanks to Badger2430 for reviewing as well.**


	5. A Super, Super Mutant

**CHAPTER 5: A SUPER, SUPER MUTANT**

I arose to the smell of, what I thought was, bacon cooking. Opening my eyes and clearing the sleep from them, it took me a couple of seconds to remember where on earth I was. The stairs of Moira's shop were almost my downfall in my half-asleep state. The red haired woman and the large, scary, leather armoured man were eating big steaks at a table on the ground floor of the building. My mouth was watering from the delicious smell of the meat as I pulled out my huge, jangling bag of caps to pay Moira with so she could give me some of the fantastic seeming food. Moira heard the bag of caps jangle and looked up from the small, gas cooker. The guard's right hand neared his gun in a sort of 'just in case' fashion.

"Oh, hey. Good morning, Callum. Your friend not up yet?" she asked, a little too loud and chirpy for the morning.

"Nah, she always wakes up late. Been like that for as long as I can remember." My stomach growled at me in annoyance, "How much for some steak? Just name your price, I'm starving."

"Oh no, no! Put that money away, Mister. Derek here just brought back a full molerat for breakfast. There's plenty to go around. Enough for nearly half the town. There's a big dish of it over there, already cooked. So take as much as you like for the two _New Wanderers_."

"Okay, thanks." I stepped forward and picked up a couple of red plates from a neat stack on the table and swiped a few thick steaks from the large mound on the serving dish. I wasted no time in sinking my teeth into the one on the top of my plate before nodding to Moira and scurrying back up the stairs to wake Brogan and give her some food too. I stopped mid-way and peaked my head round the corner of the corridor of the back room, "Not you too? You heard that guy on the radio?"

"Yeah, it's all Three Dog talks about now! Just like before..." She trailed off with a nostalgic look on her face. That was all the distraction I needed before hightailing it back up the stairs.

I gingerly shook my friend and when she didn't wake, stuck the meat under her nose until she caught the scent which made her come round instantly.

"Breakfast!" I shouted when she opened her eyes and started tearing into the cooked Molerat meat, to which she did the same once she'd gotten over the initial shock of waking up in an unfamiliar place.

"What is this? It's pretty good!" She exclaimed as she took another couple of bites.

"Molerat." I grinned when she comically dropped the steak onto the plate and her face turned slightly green.

"Does it taste nice? Yes it does. Can beggers be choosers? No they cannot. So get your food on!"

I noticed as I was halfway through my third and final steak that my stomach hurt slightly. Asking Moira about it later on, she assured us that it was just trace amounts of radiation tingling our stomachs and that it would go away in about an hour. Apparently it would happen for a couple of weeks until our Vault Dweller stomachs got used to the radiation. _Slight radiation? That sounds safe!_

* * *

After breakfast, we bought six more bottles of 'purified' water and a backpack each to carry equipment in. We then went in search of somewhere we could buy food that we could eat later on, which took us to a small, dingy diner called 'The Brass Lantern', where we bought some weird radiation cleansing food that the woman in charge named 'Punga Fruit'. The woman introduced herself as Jenny Stahl and she told us that it grew in abundance in an area the Capital Wasteland had good trade relationships with. I didn't really take much what she said into consideration, mind you, due to the simple, but silly, reason that she wore a yellow jumpsuit! We also bought some instant noodles and Blamco mac 'n' cheese. As we left the place with my backpack half-filled, I remembered what Lucas Simms said about getting a gun, so we backtracked to Moira's and asked her for help on what kind of guns that she would recommend for us to buy.

"Well, most people that go into the Wastes have a primary weapon that they use and a pistol for backup. Sometimes a knife, as well." she told us. I decided on buying an Assault Rifle that was fully automatic and had 'little recoil' apparently and a large box of 5.56mm ammo for it; along with a high damage Sawed-off Shotgun for a side-arm with a case of shotgun shells and a sharp combat knife. Brogs said that she didn't want a gun because she knew she wouldn't use it anyway, but I gave her the 10mm pistol I'd found in the vault and a stockpile of ammo for it, just in case. Moira spent the next two hours making back straps for my Assault Rifle and a holster for our respective sidearms (mine being on the left to account for my left-handedness). She also showed us how to shoot, reload and maintain our weapons correctly. She then crafted and applied various armour plates and sturdy, bullet-deflecting shields onto our vault jumpsuits. I handed over a large amount of caps to Moira, and gave her my solemn thanks for everything she had done to help us before heading out.

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" Brogs asked, grabbing my shoulder so I swung round to face her. We had just walked through the gates of Megaton and were standing with our backs to the entrance.

"More sure than I've ever been about anything in my whole life. I know it sounds a bit clichéd but, oh well."

"Okay, so which way are we going, then?" She asked, looking at my fully outfitted body. I scanned myself and her up and down, noting that we looked like true Wastelanders minus the large, golden '101' on the back of our blue upper halves.

"We're going to go and see that bastard Raider! I want to... I don't know, I just want to see him one last time, I think." I muttered as a light breeze blew dust in a circle around the two of us. I looked up toward the sun that was in its midday position of being at its highest point in the sky, "We are the New Wanderers." I stated, a sense of pride filling up in my heart.

* * *

To be honest I didn't actually think that the gun and the man's body would still be there. I thought that maybe a wife or friend or something would have picked him up and buried him under the dry, dead ground. But sure enough, when we arrived at the edge of the town which I read from a road sign was called 'Springvale', there he was under the rocket in the same mangled and twisted way. I picked up his Hunting Rifle and weighed it in my hands, finding I liked the feel of it. I noticed that its structure represented that of the bolt-action rifles of some World War 2 movie holotapes that I had watched back in the Vault.

"You want my Assault Rifle? This gun looks awesome and I kinda want to keep it." I asked Brogan and she shook her head.

"No, I refuse to shoot people." She said, pouting.

"Who says that there won't be any of those mutant things... Super Mutants."

"Mmm... I suppose. Moira told me what they were – like big yellowey-green things that are 8 feet tall at least. The come in different versions: Grunt, Brute, Master, Overlord and another form that I can't remember. They are practically bulletproof apparently. I don't think anything like that can possibly exist."

"This place seems like a shithole, so I bet you'll be proven wrong."

Two miles and five Mole Rats later, she more or less took my Assault Rifle off of me and hugged it to her chest as if it were made of gold. She seemed to be weighed down with it though because of her small structure and lack of upper-body strength. I suddenly got an idea of how to use our new scavenged junk.

"Here, gimmy that." I took her gun and produced a large bone saw that we found in a destroyed house back in Springvale. I began sawing at the stock until all that remained was a two-foot long sub-machine gun-like barrel and chamber left. Whilst walking for the next half hour, I filed at the serrated and jaggy wooden bits that I had missed with a sand paper whet stone until it was smooth. I handed it back to Brogan who seemed happy with my work as she handled the gun a little easier now. _I suppose it'll have to do 'till we find something more suitable. _I spun my Hunting Rifle round on its strap so it was now facing the front of me and then took the stone to it and filed the chipped wooden splinters that prodruded out so as to not get more cuts than I had already.

Just as I put it back I heard a soft rustling noise behind us. I was instantly alert and pulled my rifle off of me and looked down the sights in one fluid motion. Brogs clung to my right arm and started to shake a little. I looked at my map and noticed that we were slightly south west of a place called 'Jury Street Metro Station'. I quickly pressed and scrolled to the compass section of my Pip-Boy to see that there were indeed three heat signatures in the middle of it. They were red, signifying an enemy. I looked up, scanning the area intently but seeing nothing until a green glob of sludge came flying at my head from the hill to the left. I dived to the ground wrapping an arm around Brogan and pulling her down with me. I shot in the general direction of the top of the hill and I heard a loud cry from two figures that turned out to be these 'Super Mutants' that we were speaking about a few hours previous.

"Stupid human! You lose! You come to Vegas now!" The larger one bellowed. Vegas? What? Did it mean Las Vegas? Why would it want me to come to Vegas?

"Th-that's the o-other side of the c-c-country though." I was shaking in fear as well now at the sight of and putrid smell of death of these big monsters. They had us surrounded, with weapons not unlike my own trained on us. My hands were in the air, still holding my Hunting Rifle.

"Shut up human! You become one of us now!"

"N-n-no l-leave us alone! G-go away!" I stood up as tall as I could, thinking that maybe they were stupid enough to believe that I must've been brave for a reason.

"Armour Human kill our home! We have new home now! Near Bright Light City! You no come?Now you die! AUGHHHH!" It screamed and brought its Hunting Rifle up closer to its face but I was faster. Time seemed to slow to an almost stop as my left arm snapped down and shot my rifle one-armed. I shot it straight in the eye! The uncontrollable recoil that came with shooting it with one hand caused the barrel to rise upwards and I used the verticle momentum in the gun's motion to twist my grip on it so I was now holding the barrel instead of the stock! It was now essentially a club that I used to hit the smaller (but still huge) one's gun from its hands in the same, lighting quick fashion as before. The now one-eyed Super Mutant started screeching and clutching its eye socket while the other one kicked me in the chest making me fly over a large overturned, red train carriage which Brogan had already hidden behind. The wind had been completely knocked out of me and I had lost my gun. I lay on the floor coughing and spluttering when I heard a large amount of gunfire that came from where the monsters were. Far too many gunshots for just two super mutants to create. Once my chest no longer hurt (as much) I peeked round the corner of the carriage to see a bunch of people with patchy leather and metal armour in extreme armed conflict with the Super Mutants. Raiders, Bastards! For now they were helping us but I doubted that was because they wanted to, more because they were getting shot at. I waited until the gunfire had ceased and the Super Mutants' dying gurgles quieted before easing out of our cover spot and shouting to the Raiders.

"Th-thank you for taking care of them for us. Emm... you want some caps for uh... being helpful?" They instantly turned round and aimed their guns at Brogan and I and we both reached for the sky. They began to laugh sadistically and the man at the back, presumably the leader, stepped forward.

"Oh well, lookey wha' we got 'ere boys... a wee kiddie and a kiddie party favour. We'll soon make an' honest woman out of 'er, ayy boys?" A maniacal laugh spread through the group and the leader plucked my friend from my grasp. I started towards him but he pulled out his 9mm pistol and pressed it against my forehead, pushing me backwards slightly before bringing it down to Brogan's temple. "Nuh, uh, uh. We don't want any little accidents happening now do we?" Brogan began to cry and shake.

"You're a sick fuck you know th..." CRACK! He smashed his free left hand into my jaw which made me stagger backwards, disorientated. Once I had regained myself I began to shout at him again. "I'm gonna kill you! I swear to God I'm gonna..." I stopped, feeling something under my feet.

"Wha's wrong boyo? All your bravery just leave you behind? Think that's what we'll do. Not even kill you, jus' leave you behin' so you 'ave to live with thinkin' what we're gonna do to your girlfriend!" He goaded me, sending a laugh through his gang.

"No... the ground... it... it's shaking." I looked around nervously.

"Haha, boy, tryin' to change the subject ain't goin' to stop us from havin' your girl in every position known to man! Now, so how's about you stop fuckin' stallin' an' get on yer knees, ayy?" The ground began to shake and shudder powerfully in rhythm. As if it were... footsteps?

"OH SHHHHIIIIIITTTTTTTTT! BEHEMOTHHHHH!" One of the Raiders screamed. They scattered, running in the general north direction. The leader looked up from me and made a look of real terror before joining the crowd, dropping Brogan at my feet. I turned round and completely froze up. There was the biggest possible Super Mutant charging at the two of us, brandishing a fire hydrant that was welded to massive, thick pole. The 'Behemoth' so to speak, was at least twenty-five feet tall and had makeshift armour made of car doors and shopping trolleys, along with a "necklace" of human skulls. I was still staring at it blundering and crashing towards us, completely petrified and awestruck by the sight before me. Itwas **exactly** what young children of the Vault had nightmares about. 'The Vault Bogeyman'. A giant that could swallow you whole and then wear your skull around its neck. I was broke out of my trance by my gun being pressed to my chest and being put in my arms.

"Callum, run! Come on! Snap out of it!" Brogan screamed in my ear and slapped my face when I refused to budge. That brought me back; I shook my head and took a step back to look at the advancing mutant's face. It was only about 50 meters away now gaining fast. It was what I saw during the look up that gave me an idea. I scanned the environment for anything to help and found that there were dangling bags of guts and body parts overhead that had flies buzzing around them and mould forming on the outside, signalling that they were obviously overrun with parasites. I glanced to the left, nothing, just dead Super Mutants and a dead, pink half-man looking creature. But to the right I saw the second and hopefully last part of my plan – massive, bloody, metal spikes that looked very sharp and deadly at the tip.

"Gogo, whatever I say just do it. Right? … Okay, run! Now!"

"What?"

"FUCKING RUN!" She sprinted towards the fleeing Raiders which caused the Super Mutant to get agitated and attempt to go for me and me alone. I waited for a second and made a silent prayer not to miss, but my aim was true and perfectly timed: the rope attaching the gore bag to the overhead railway lines was ripped through by the .308 round, sending the mesh sack down onto the mutant's head. The liquid blood and guts dribbled and poured down into its unprotected eyes. It shrieked in pain which deafened me and could probably have been heard back in Megaton. I could almost hear the parasites in the blood munching on the mutant's eyes, forcing it to the ground where it clawed at them, as if trying to force the pain away. With the mutant distracted and temporarily blinded I took the time to sneak behind it and climb the back ladder of a grey train carriage. I then started shooting my sawed-off and rifle at the mutant's head to make it fix its attention on me. It turned round bellowing and blindly ran to me, swinging its fire hydrant pole as I squeezed my eyes shut... waiting for what was hopefully going to happen. The Behemoth stopped short of me and I ripped open my eyes after hearing a choking sound. The plan had worked! In its blinded form it had run straight into the sharp, metal beam protruding from the ground which had pierced directly into the centre of its stomach. The monster attempted to back up and had found itself blocked by what it only would have seen as some kind of unknown force field. 'He' looked down stupidly at the massive gurder of bloody steel stabbed through its mid-section and looked me straight in the face; gurgled something inaudible; spat up blood at me which fell short; slumped forward and impaled itself even further on the spike which now jutted out from his back, then died. The spike cut through a large burlap sack that was tied round the mutant's waist, making it fall to the ground.

"Bee!" I screamed, "Where are you? Come back here we're safe!" I heard some footsteps approaching that were light and soft. I surmised that they must have been a girls', so I busied myself in searching through the behemoth's pack, not turning round as the footsteps approached. Most of the items were garbage, cigarettes, lawn mower blades etc, but two things stood out; a large .44 Magnum 6-shooter revolver and a decent sized box of .44 bullets. I held the magnum in my hands, noticing it had a scope on top of it. I stared lovingly at the new addition to my gun arsenal that had formed in my bag from the dead Super Mutants and Raiders until I felt Brogan's presence. I looked up from my, now occupied, right leg holster to see my friend standing with an incredulous expression on her face.

"How? Just how? The size... you..." She trailed off, not believing how I had survived the incident.

"I killed it." I said bluntly, "I don't know how but I did it. It's over now Bear, let's just leave this damned place behind and keep on with the search. Please?"

"Not so fast!" It was the Raiders again! "Hold on. Did... did you jus' kill that mutie? Naw, you can't have? Fuck me! Holy shit! Fuckin' ice cold killer! That's impossible…let's get outta 'ere!" All of the Raiders took off, obedient of their leader, each shouting their own individual profanities after us, most of which contained statements of varying disbelief.

"Yeah! That's right run! Fucking run for the hills you sadist bastards. The name's Callum Fucking Almodovar! And don't you forget it!" Brogs stared at me open-mouthed, and jumped on me to hug and hold me extremely tight.

"You... got rid of them!" she said gleefully, beginning to cry once more, "How can you save my life twice in two days? I love you Callum, I really do."

"Yeah... I love you too..." I replied, looking away in thought.

"What's wrong?"

"Just thinking about what the other _normal_ mutants said to us... that we were going to become them. Does that mean that these things are actually humans... or were? That would mean I just killed another person?"

"No Callum... to be human you have to be humane just as you can be humane without being a human."

"I guess that makes sense. So, in a sense, it's okay to shoot the bad guys as long as they shoot first?"

"That's kinda what I was getting at, except... you don't have to say it like a twelve-year-old boy!"

"You wouldn't have said it like that though?" I joked, and it took her a while to click that I'd just playfully insulted her. She smiled, being used to my silly sense of humour, "Thanks for making me feel better Gogo." I gave her a kiss, before looking down at my Pip-Boy to check the time and when I saw it was almost seven at night, decided to set off for just a little while before making camp for the night.

* * *

"Oh my God! How the fuck do you make fires?"

"Breath, sunshine, breath."

"But I don't understand it, Bee, I've got wood and lots of it. Dried to hell so it should burn well. Got flammable things to start it: paper drenched in whiskey. But I can't think of how to get a spark. Stupid Pip-Boy, why couldn't you just connect to these scrap electronic wires? We could make a spark if it did but nooo... Vault Tech just has to be more advanced." I ranted, going red in the face.

"What about this fission battery?" Brogan asked quietly, holding it in the air.

"Genius! Right, so, I connect these two wires in it... now put them together to make a spa... AUGHH... the fucker shocked me!"

"You should be more careful, then!" She folded her arms with a smug grin.

"Fuck you... ok... yes... YES! Did it... oh yeah... I did it... oh yeahyeahyeahyeah!"

"Stop singing! You want to bring down every Raider in the Capital Wasteland to kill us?" I shook my head, "Then be quiet."

"Yeah…right sorry. And you're calling it the Capital Wasteland now? I thought you'd stick to calling it 'DC' or something. Anyway, you hungry?" She nodded, "Same, I'm starving." I took out some of the leftover molerat meat from Moira's and a couple of Nuka Cola's which made our Geiger counters tick when we devoured them. The fire had good cover from the wind by a tall cliff that hung over us on three sides (kind of like a little indent in the mountain), so the fire was strong and very warming. After I had finished my dinner, I picked up a long stick from the edge of the fire and started poking amongst the embers. I switched to the status section on my Pip-Boy and pressed on 'radiation'. The display read 7 Rads which to me was basically another language. In the vault, when learning about radiation in Physics class we'd always used different units to measure absorbed dose and the like; so I clicked the flashing hyperlink text for more info which then explained (in a shit-lot of detail) how the 'Rad' system works. Basically up to 200 Rads you will be fine; but after that you would start feeling woozy and nauseous until you get to 400 Rads. Then onwards you will actually be physically sick and become really dizzy and tired. Eventually when you hit 800 Rads you can hardly move and you start bleeding internally which comes out of your bodily orifices (including the privates and ass!) Finally at about 1000 Rads you flat-out just die. I read the important parts out to Brogan to let her know the dangers too and laughed when I saw her face after hearing the bleeding part.

We spent the rest of the night hours before sleeping listening to the strange mid-20th century songs that Three Dog played on the radio and attempted to learn the words. Being musically minded, I quickly picked up most of the lyrics and made a few assumptions on the rest so we could sing a few songs quietly to one another. When the sky was completely black, we fell asleep embracing each other in the foetal position for warmth, a think blanket covering both of us. _At this point we didn't realise the number one rule in the Wasteland: always, always sleep in shifts!_

* * *

I stood up, yawning, and looked around confused until my still-sleeping brain remembered where I was. I stumbled clumsily round the corner of the little indent in the cliff we slept under and started to take a piss while my hoarse voice sung a made up song quietly to myself.

"That's some song Callum. That'd better not had been about me... was it?" I absolutely bricked it and spun round to see a jokingly stern Brogan staring at me with her arms folded.

"No of course not, babe," I impishly replied, regretting it, as I could almost hear her going to say 'then who', so I decided to try making a reason (_key word... try_), "No, well... um... it was about you but... eh... not like that. You know what I mean! I like singing to myself!" I stopped when I realised that I was simply digging a hole. Caught with my pants down... quite literally. "Hm hm... personal space please? Privacy?" She smiled, shaking her head and walked back to the ashy remains of last night's fire. I quickly zipped up my jeans and hurried after her. I pulled my Pip-Boy map up to her face, resting my chin atop her head and showed her that we were half way to Little Lamplight, "Look, I can set markers to make sure we are going in the right direction!" I chirped, fascinated by the facilities of my Pip-Boy that I never had a reason to go on to before. "Yep I'll set one for there... hang on. I can set quest markers and everything. I wish that I'd made a quest before! Anyway, let's gather our stuff and boost away 'coz we can make it by nightfall if we go quickly, I reckon."

We ventured further into the wastes, still nowhere near ready for the other dangers that awaited us.

**Phew, that was a long one! Thanks for the new favourites and follows. And a special thanks to the Guest profile for the encouraging review. Till next chapter guys.**


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